Portal. i literally cannot believe about 9 out of 10 people who claim they like them. i actually think these people are totally full of shit. it's not portal's fault - i think they're pretty good, myself - but most of the people who claim to like them don't seem to actually like weird music at all so it seems absolutely incongruent that they "like" portal. just seems like a trendy thing to say you like Portal. i don't get people.

I have exactly the same opinion.I was buying their albums - have to admit- actually because I buy almost everything that comes from Australia and trust blindly the aussie black/death .
When I heard them ,I was so disappointed.Noisy,anarchic,chaotic structures not sharp and 'certain' riffs.I am a Vomitor fan and maybe I cannot 'catch' their 'progression' and experimentality..
Actually their music is not memorable.that's the problem.

I also agree on Portal. This might not refer to the Protal itself, but to me it feels like most of the new wave of old school death metal whatever bands just take out the dark and morbid atmospheric from its roots but totally lack of interesting songwriting and memorable parts which almost all old bands managed to have.

I think Watain is probably the first band that comes to mind for me too, never though Casus would be so well received and was even more surprised when they went from beloved underground gem to everyone's favorite band to call foul on.

Not metal, but All Time Low is from my neck of the woods. They were the most pathetic, made fun of, complete joke of the local music scene. They once did a "tour" of local church venues that they threatened to cancel half way through because people kept disrupting their sets, I cannot fathom how they became popular.

Urfaust is another great example, back in 06/07 I don't think I knew a single person interested in them. Nowadays apparently they're the kvlt black metal act that hipsters get to feel true for liking and actual black metal fans get to enjoy without feeling like hipsters.

Oh, and all that pseudo-70's satanic rock revival stuff. Never would've thought it would get this big, first band I saw doing it was Witchcraft and when they toured the US maybe 10 people came out to the show I saw.

Any of the new Doom bands going around right now, not a very big fan of not quite sabbath not quite cathedral, not quite St. Vitus type crap. Also Ghost, not sure why anyone likes their music, never will understand. Can't get why people think Cauldron is good, they sound like faster Dokken with even worse vocals, also don't get why anyone ever liked the Black Dahlia Murder, some real mediocre death/black/....whatever type over technical jock strap bullshit._________________"It was the best of time it was the blurst of times."

Burzum is the most obvious candidate for me. I cannot fucking believe Varg ended up being this worldwide legend in music. This has little to do with the music itself, since it's pretty strange that bm ever got very big at all if you think about it. The reason I'm still surprised at Varg's success is that he seems to be the only guy in metal that gets a pass on politics and deeds that would get almost any other bm act blacklisted from anything remotely mainstream.

Maybe the fact that Varg is so disjointed and silly with his statements causes people to take him more as a joke.

Both GHOST and WATAIN have already been mentioned, so please leave it at that._________________THINGS THAT WILL BE DELETED:
1. Ghost and Watain threads
2. Image signatures
3. Content related to Necroytardonic Records
4. Memes
5. Ebonics

Burzum is the most obvious candidate for me. I cannot fucking believe Varg ended up being this worldwide legend in music. This has little to do with the music itself, since it's pretty strange that bm ever got very big at all if you think about it. The reason I'm still surprised at Varg's success is that he seems to be the only guy in metal that gets a pass on politics and deeds that would get almost any other bm act blacklisted from anything remotely mainstream.

Maybe the fact that Varg is so disjointed and silly with his statements causes people to take him more as a joke.

Came here to post this.

I have friends who give me some serious side eye when I talk about Graveland or GBK but fucking love Burzum. It's baffling.

This should not be seen as a thread where a band is trashed for being successful, rather a band that you never expected having seen start out ever achieving the level of success they attained later. What are some bands you've heard that through a combination of factors achieved an undreamed level of success? What was their largest contributing factor to the success they garnered, and how have their albums shown the transformation from when you first heard them?

Probably Watain._________________

harmless wrote:

There's nothing worse than a 45 year old man in a Darkthrone T-shirt and a receding hairline. Even cholera is better.

Maybe Opeth. Orchid and Morningrise are awesome albums and the people dissing them now most likely didn't even know them back then at all and only got introduced when they were already heading much more towards to prog and like with many other bands, their fans annoys people even more than their music. After the first 2 albums, I would've never guessed how big they eventually became as they were far from popular stuff back then, but there's a lot of prog fans in the world and now they're quite huge. They should've never got involved with Wilson, he ruined them.

I think Watain is probably the first band that comes to mind for me too, never though Casus would be so well received and was even more surprised when they went from beloved underground gem to everyone's favorite band to call foul on.

Not metal, but All Time Low is from my neck of the woods. They were the most pathetic, made fun of, complete joke of the local music scene. They once did a "tour" of local church venues that they threatened to cancel half way through because people kept disrupting their sets, I cannot fathom how they became popular.

Urfaust is another great example, back in 06/07 I don't think I knew a single person interested in them. Nowadays apparently they're the kvlt black metal act that hipsters get to feel true for liking and actual black metal fans get to enjoy without feeling like hipsters.

Oh, and all that pseudo-70's satanic rock revival stuff. Never would've thought it would get this big, first band I saw doing it was Witchcraft and when they toured the US maybe 10 people came out to the show I saw.

I have to agree about Urfaust (wich I discovered quite early) and Watain. Two great acts with a fan-base mostly composed of hipsters and pseudo-elitists. I would add DsO. A once great underground act now extremely appreciated between pseudo-intellectuals that have nothing to do with Black Metal.

Burzum is the most obvious candidate for me. I cannot fucking believe Varg ended up being this worldwide legend in music. This has little to do with the music itself, since it's pretty strange that bm ever got very big at all if you think about it. The reason I'm still surprised at Varg's success is that he seems to be the only guy in metal that gets a pass on politics and deeds that would get almost any other bm act blacklisted from anything remotely mainstream.

Maybe the fact that Varg is so disjointed and silly with his statements causes people to take him more as a joke.

I think the last sentence is true, I like Burzum myself, but his views are just lame. I think the fuzz is more about his views then his music._________________

harmless wrote:

There's nothing worse than a 45 year old man in a Darkthrone T-shirt and a receding hairline. Even cholera is better.

Yeah. I saw them open for Demlich in Los Angeles some 8 years back, and it seemed like the most bland, unimaginative 46th wave black metal you could possibly come up with. I was mystified when I started hearing their name pop up all over the place during the subsequent years.

I don't know much of their material except for the early stuff, but I don't think it's unfair to say the Ace Ventura connection has kept them in the stratosphere of popular conscience for twenty fucking years

I Think the marketing for them was pretty visible as well, even through the not-too-dm-friendly mid 90īs era when all the other death metal bands were dropped from bigger labels etc., their name was still there in the ads, merch catalogs etc. Also the extreme yet easily digestable band name propably helped.